Blazed and Confused
by Chuck's Prophet
Summary: "Remember that little tidbit about Dean and homosexuality on okay terms? Well, that grade just got bumped up to excellent." Dean and Cas are roommates secretly crushing on each other until a house fire brings them together. Destiel. Roommate AU. One!shot. Rated M for coarse language.


Blazed and Confused

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Word count: _1265_

_**A/N**__: Another Roommate AU! In the wise words of one Dean Winchester, "I don't have a good answer."_

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"Cas, are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"_Dean_," he addressed in the same almost paternal tone, "I'm pretty sure anyone with a left brain knows how to make macaroni and cheese."

"Yeah, well, you're gonna have to give me more than pretty sure."

"Alright, almost very pretty sure."

And that's the prequel to how Dean ended up soaking wet with two broken fingers, a scalded wrist, and what he was "very pretty sure" was a mild concussion.

It's a marvel how they haven't been evicted yet.

It wasn't like he loathed his roommate. Au contraire, Cas was one of the nicest—and not to mention undeniably handsome—people he's come to know under the same roof, but their relationship was amicable at best, never extending past a friendly goodnight or small conversation. Truth was, he felt bad for the guy. His brothers kicked him to the curb the same day they found cutouts of guys twice his age—and _wouldn't you know,_ stark nude—tucked inside his lampshade.

Dean didn't have a problem with homosexuality. He did, however, have beef with hobbyless assholes. He had a brother of his own, a law-abiding undergraduate and soon-to-be district attorney and even _he_ couldn't stoop that low.

Usually Dean took care of chores around the two-bedroom studio, including cooking (because no one made marinade burgers better than Dean Winchester), but lately, Cas had been uncharacteristically stepping in. Grocery runs, laundry (even going so far as to washing Dean's... delicates)—he even gave Baby, his prized 67' Impala, a scrub down while Dean overslept for work one day.

And, more recently, he took up cooking, which obviously didn't go over well. Hell, that statement didn't even do justice—they had to vacate the building while the fire department came to hose down the place.

It wasn't like he had anything incredibly valuable if the place just burst into smithereens anyway. Valuable to him were the pictures of his mother and father and little brother, Sam. But those were tucked in a shoebox somewhere under his bed, way out of burning vicinity. If Cas had started the fire in _his _room… let's just say he probably wouldn't be his usual cute and cuddly self.

But the pain on Castiel's face is so pronounced that Dean can't find his tongue to formulate the "I told you so" he mulled over at least a dozen times in his head. His blue eyes were heavy, and for a split second, he feels guilty hogging surplus warmth from his Metallica bath towel. Dean was courteous enough in supplying him one too, but they both knew that this was about more than breaking a few appliances and pissing away fifty cents worth of packaged noodles.

"Alright, talk to me."

Cas lifted his head, gaping unknowingly at him. Dean did everything in his power not to turn this comedy show into a theatre production, but when the home (and possibly his life) was in danger, he had no other option.

"You're mad," he said like he was diagnosing a patient.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a breakthrough deduction. "I'm not mad," Dean said honestly, shaking his head. He adopted patience from Sam, who, believe it or not, went through the same turbulence Cas is currently going through. Only then Dean could usually read him easy—Cas was _Ulysses_ unedited. "I'm just a little confused."

"That makes two of us."

"What?"

Cas masticated on his lower lip in a childlike way, more or less. Now that Dean really and truly looked at him, he was reminded of how gorgeous he was. Blue eyes and mangled mocha hair that blended well with nice, light stubble, accentuated those perfect plum pink lips. If he was made into a caricature, everything would have to be exaggerated to a T.

Remember that little tidbit about Dean and homosexuality on okay terms?

Well, that grade just got bumped up to excellent.

He never pictured himself (and neither would the dozens of women he's slept with) as even remotely gay (even if he did like to "experiment" with laced pink panties and blast "Shake It Off" down an abandoned freeway. In his defense, Taylor Swift grew up _good_).

Then an adrenaline-spiked twenty-something bumped into him at Starbucks and suddenly he was wearing caramel macchiato and hearing Boy George.

"I said that makes both of us," he said, folding his arms over his chest. Dean had at least five inches on the guy, so it was kind of (_okay, alright_) cute to see him put up defenses. "I mean, I've always known certain things about myself, but I've never had the impulse to act on them—truth is I was never allowed to…"

Dean pulled his towel tighter around his body even though he wasn't cold. He disguised a smile in finishing, "… be confused?"

"Yeah, generally," he laughed shyly.

Dean nodded, turning to catch the fleeting gaze of one of the firefighters on duty, and he had to unfetter some of his shackled giddiness. He spoke to Cas, keeping his emerald eyes trained on the medic, "You see that guy?"

"Yeah, he's kinda hard to miss. He just saved us another hundred in Kraft products."

The taller man almost passed over the comment entirely he was so focused. "I used to look at guys like that and think, '_Goddamn, I wanna be just like him one day_'. Then you came around and now all I can say is '_Goddamn_'."

Cas blinked a few times like he'd just been stunned with a laser gun. "Oh, sorry…?"

"What, that you talked me out of Firefighter Academy?" he asked, emitting a laugh and facing him again before moving out of the way for the Holy God of Fire. "I didn't even finish high school. I'm a part-time mechanic with a weird fascination for teenage pop idols; I would never qualify as a full-time Mother Nature crime-fighter."

The blush on the slightly younger man's face was infectious and Dean had to refrain from saying something completely stupid. Cas was an English Lit major studying to be a teacher before his jackass brothers cut him off without so much as a sayonara. Now he worked at the Gas n' Sip a couple blocks south and even though he just got promoted to sales manager, it was obvious his heart was somewhere else.

Cas was leaning against the lackluster white wall of the apartment building now, rid of his towel, hands tied behind his back. He reverted to lip-biting again as he said, "Just, for the record, I wasn't confused when I said I liked you."

"Neither was I."

The blue-eyed boy shot his head to rest on a familiar green. "You never said—"

"I'm saying it now," he said resolutely, taking a few steps into what Dean once knew as personal space. "I like you, Castiel Novak. I like you more than regular words can describe in my forsaken dropout vocabulary."

Cas looked like he was about to cry, laugh, puke, and choke on all three emotions simultaneously, and in his rare moment of speechlessness, all he could say was, "How sure are you?"

Dean allowed a smile, drawing him into the length of his body with his hand. He was an inch away from recoiling, completely disremembering the sustained injuries to his fingers and wrist, but then his lips were on his roommate's and it was then he realized the only grievances he was suffering was from not doing this sooner.

Pulling away for the much-anticipated answer, Dean confirmed, "Very pretty sure."

**-END-**


End file.
